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Hazel (thyroid cancer, metastasized to her lung) and Augustus (osteosarcoma) meet at a teen cancer support group and “[fall] in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once” in spite of their philosophical differences: Augustus plans to seize every opportunity, while Hazel just hopes to have an opportunity. Leaving a mark upon the world would be easier if it didn’t mean leaving a scar on the person you love.

Congratulations to Vyctoria Olveira, who designed the winning replacement book cover in our April contest! Vyctoria's cover will be used on all our copies of Marcus Zusak's The Book Thief this summer. (View the full-size cover here.)

We will also be using teen-designed covers on select copies of the following:

Lauren Bennett's cover for The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman

Eric Hachey's cover for Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

Tyler Canning's cover for Feed, by M.T. Anderson

Kelsey Barbarossa's cover for Nineteen Minutes, by Jodi Picoult

Anthony Brown's cover for In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

Sawyer Fortier's cover for It's Kind of a Funny Story, by Ned Vizzini

Congratulations to these talented teens! Stop into the Teen Zone this summer to see their work displayed.

The Friends of the Library have put together a Red Sox Gift Basket full of a variety of items for Red Sox fans including two tickets to for the Red Sox versus Detroit Tigers game on July 31st at 7 pm. Tickets are $2 each or three for $5 and can be purchased at the main service desk. The drawing will be held on July 2.

In celebration of Wilmington’s 282nd anniversary of incorporation on September 25, 1730, the library is sponsoring “Wilmington Through Art Contest.” Entries must be hand produced art work and must represent Wilmington. Examples are Town Common, Silver Lake, town buildings, historical sites, etc. Click here for application.

Nailer works as light crew, stripping copper wire and other small-but-valuable material from wrecked ships along the gulf coast, but he knows his days are numbered, as he won’t fit in the tight spaces much longer. So when Nailer finds a clipper ship with a beautiful girl inside it wrecked on a nearby island after a hurricane, he believes his luck has turned. Soon, though, the wreck is discovered by Nailer’s abusive father and his band of thieves. Nailer has a choice: hand over the girl, the luckiest of Lucky Strikes any of his crew has ever seen, or take her back to her father, where—she says—Nailer will be well-rewarded, if they can avoid the thieves and rogues actively pursuing them.

In The Magic Room, journalist and author (The Girls From Ames) Jeffrey Zaslow uses Becker’s Bridal, a family business in Michigan, as a lens to examine marriage, love, and parenthood. Becker’s has been in the family for three generations; when a mother-daughter pair comes looking for the daughter’s wedding dress, it’s likely the mother got her dress from Becker’s, too. (The “magic room” is a mirrored room upstairs where the brides-to-be can see themselves in the dress they think might be “the one.”) Zaslow tells the story of several women throughout the book, including the Becker women; he writes with rare insight, sincerity, and compassion, perhaps because he had three daughters of his own. (Zaslow died in a car crash in February 2012.)

Despite the cover, Maine is not a light beach read; it’s a multigenerational story featuring four complex (and not always likable) female characters. There’s Alice, the grandmother who feels responsible for her sister’s death decades earlier; Kathleen, Alice’s daughter, who broke with the whole family and moved to California; Maggie, Kathleen’s daughter, a semi-successful writer in Brooklyn who has just discovered she’s pregnant; and finally the “perfect” Ann Marie, Alice’s daughter-in-law, underappreciated by most and outright resented by some. They are truly “four unforgettable women who have nothing in common but the fact that, like it or not, they’re family.” The author writes from each character’s perspective with incredible insight and depth of feeling; this is truly a character-driven story that explores the nature of familiar bonds. Recommended for those who enjoyed Faith by Jennifer Haigh or The Widower’s Tale by Julia Glass.

The Library Book is a collection of twenty-three short essays and stories in support of libraries. Authors, radio and TV personalities, librarians, and other prominent members of society have contributed to this lovely collection that celebrates the joys of reading and all that public libraries have to offer. Lucy Mangan’s piece “The Rules” is particularly funny, “Library Life” by Zadie Smith is insightful and incisive, and in “Have You Heard of Oscar Wilde?” Stephen Fry describes the importance of libraries to education and personal growth. “Libraries,” writes Hardeep Singh Kohli, “are the heartbeats of communities.” Profits from the sale of the book go to The Reading Agency, an independent British charity whose mission is to inspire people to read more.